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Weighing scales for ’19

The attempt to form a Mahagathbandhan at the national level is not going to be easy. With less than 50 seats, the Congress on its own cannot dictate terms, especially since in several states, it has no significant presence.

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Kapil Sibal

The attempt to form a Mahagathbandhan at the national level is not going to be easy. With less than 50 seats, the Congress on its own cannot dictate terms, especially since in several states, it has no significant presence. The Congress needs to form strategic alliances in those states so that in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha elections, the alliance partners stand with it to ensure a non-BJP government at the Centre. The results in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will decide who will be in government at the Centre. If the Congress and the RLD become part of the alliance comprising the SP and BSP, it will be a formidable force. The BJP will find it difficult to get any significant success in the 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. The RJD along with the Congress in Bihar can also be a formidable force to reckon with. If, in these two states, the BJP is not able to get a substantial number of seats, it will be difficult for Narendra Modi to be the prime minister in 2019.

In the meantime, the Congress will have to decide who it wishes to ally with in West Bengal. Our partnership in Tamil Nadu with the DMK should prove beneficial for us in the long run. Wherever the BJP and the Congress are pitted against each other, it is very likely that the BJP will be cut to size. In Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar has already declared that his party, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), would be in alliance with the Congress to fight the next election. That augurs well. It seems that the politics of liberal, secular parties is on track and that of Modi, in decline.

However, election results can never be predicted. The mood of the nation cannot be gauged in advance. Demonetization has destroyed lives, while a flawed GST has negatively impacted businesses, especially in the informal sector. Rising NPAs, lack of credit facilities and rampant unemployment with GDP at 6.75 per cent in 2017-18 will certainly not help Modi in the coming election. The agricultural sector has been badly hit by demonetization. Modi has betrayed the agricultural sector by not fulfilling his promises. His belated attempt to increase MSP of crops for the current kharif season is not going to change the lives of farmers for the better, especially since the ills of the sector are not entirely related to an increase in MSP. There are fundamental issues in agriculture that need to be addressed. Modi has failed to do that for four years. No significant reforms in the education and health sectors have taken place and the recent decision to set up a Higher Education Commission has not gone down well with the academic world.

For Modi, it is politics all the way, as has been the case in the last four years. He moves from one event to another, coins an acronym every other day. Despite event management, control of the media and the trolling army that tirelessly supports him, the Modi magic has soured. His exhortation, “If you have given the Congress 60 years, give me 60 months and I will change India” shall sound hollow at the end of his 60 months.

But you never know what the voter will do. We will have to wait until 2019.

(Excerpted from Shades of Truth by Kapil Sibal. Rupa)

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